“Marya, God damn it,” her mother said, panting, “get up, I know you been awake all along and I know you been listening, get up and get Davy dressed.”

Marya’s mother was wearing the black cotton slacks that were too tight at the waist, and one of Marya’s father’s flannel shirts, only half buttoned. Marya could see her heavy breasts swinging loose inside the shirt. Her hair was matted and wild, her eyes looked wild too, you could see that most of her lipstick had been worn off, or caked in queer little cracks on her lower lip.

Davy was already awake, whimpering, frightened. When Marya tried to haul him out of bed he kicked at her: so she pummeled him and said, “God damn it, don’t you try none of those tricks on me.” Her mother had already gone back into the kitchen.

Davy was three years old, small for his age, always whining, crying, wiping his nose on his sleeve. When he groped at Marya, blinking like a kitten only a few days old, saying, “Mamma, Mamma,” she slapped his hands away. “Damn baby,” Marya whispered, “you hadn’t better of wet the bed.”

“WHERE ARE WE going?” Marya asked, trying not to cry. The kitchen smelled of kerosene, wood smoke, spilled scorched food from the night before. “Are we going to town?”

“Never mind,” her mother said. She wasn’t looking at Marya: she was stooped over the baby in his high chair, spooning cold baby food into his mouth.

“Where’s Daddy?” Marya asked. She knew the driveway was empty but she looked out the window anyway. “Where’s the car?”

“Make sure Davy eats something,” her mother said. Her voice was low, flat, quick. It was a voice Marya hadn’t heard very often. “And don’t you spit that stuff out when I’m not looking—that’s all the breakfast you’re going to get.”

Marya was supposed to be feeding Davy while her mother fed the baby in his wobbly high chair. But it was too early to eat. The clock on the windowsill had stopped at three twenty-five. The sun wasn’t up, the rain still pounded hard on the roof and against the windows, Marya could hear a drip, a rapid dripping, in one of the corners; her eyelids closed and when she opened them she became confused and couldn’t think what to do. The yellow plastic cereal bowls, the spoons, the box of Wheat Chex with the monkey on the side, the milk she’d brought from the refrigerator that had gone slightly sour. . . . Davy gagged, or pretended to; and Marya didn’t want any cereal herself, her stomach was too excited. . . .

Marya’s mother must have scrubbed her face hard with a washrag, her skin shone like dull metal; like the spoons. Her eyes were threaded with blood and moved about the kitchen without coming to rest on anything, like fish darting.